To ATL and back:Disney Kids survive Snowpocalypse '11~4 month update

[AprilRenee]

Welcome to my first trip report and my second trip. I’ve read several trip reports since our last trip in May 2010 and decided that this trip I was going to write one myself.
On our first trip, it was just me (April) and my DH Andrew

This trip we decided to take along my 3 younger brothers:

Elliott (20) who had never been to Disney before but was SUPER excited to go

Oliver (17) had been once for 1 day in 2008. They went to Epcot for a few hours, ate in WS and only rode a couple rides (and not Soarin!). So we decided that trip didn’t totally count and he could still wear a 1st visit button since this was his first full trip and his first time seeing the Castle (which no trip could possibly be complete without!)

and Avery (13) who had been to Epcot with Oliver in 2008 but only rode like 2 of the rides and ate a burger in the American Pavilion. So he got a first trip button too!

Our parents had recently started divorce proceedings and we kids needed some time together and away from the real world. So where better to go than Disney World?

Our trip was kinda an accident really. Andrew and I had just returned from our May trip and jokingly talked to the boys about taking a trip with them. I priced it out just for knowledge and told them all how much it would cost each of them just as an option sometime in the future. Then somehow, it ended up being a real plan, then the Free Dinning offer came out, and then I bought plane tickets, and then Christmas was over and it was January and we were getting on a plane!

We were staying at All Star Music in a Family Suite, starting Jan 3rd and heading home on Jan 9th (Andrew's birthday). We had a late flight out so he was going to get to spend most of his birthday in Disney World.

I convinced my mom to let the boys skip the first week back to school after Christmas Break (it wasn't that hard to do) and since Elliott's college didn't start til mid January it was the perfect time to go. Crowd predictions were low and we'd still get to see the end of the Christmas decorations AND Osborne Family Lights!

Now, I am a crazy vacation researcher (or an upstanding member of the Dis, depending on how you look at it). So for our first trip I had read Unofficial Guide cover to cover (really! I pretty much only skipped some of the hotel info. I read almost everything else) and I spent hours on the Dis learning everything I could. Our trip was fantastic and my DH Andrew was duly impressed. I was feeling good about this trip and looking forward to impressing my brothers in the same way. However, they apparently already though I was a Disney nut so my Disney trivia and knowledge didn’t impress them quite as much. Either that or they were so tired they couldn’t think straight enough to mention it.

Why were they so tired? Well it probably had something to do with how doggone early we had to get up to get to the airport.

I planned a 6:35am flight with a layover in Atlanta that got us into MCO around 12:05. Perfect right? MK was open til 9 then we could hop to HS to see the last night of Osborne family lights during EMH til 11p. That practically gave us a whole day in Disney World on our arrival day.

Well, what I didn’t really think about was how early we’d have to get up to be at the airport for our 6:35a flight! My dad was driving us to the airport so we decided to meet at his house about 4:30a. Elliott has an apartment in that neighborhood and the 2 younger boys live about 5 min away. However, we live 30 minutes away so that meant we had to leave our house at 4a which meant we had to wake up by 3:30 at least. That’s REALLY early for us!!

But up we got and headed to my dads. We managed to remember everything the first time so we didn’t even have to run back to the house.

We had dropped our puppies off at their sitters houses the day before. Holly (the darker one) was staying with my friend Erin and Elly (the blonde) was staying with Elliott’s girlfriend Jacqueline.

So once we got to my dad’s we piled into the car and drove to the airport. We didn’t have any trouble getting thru security and got to the gate in plenty of time. Avery and I held down the fort (and stayed with the luggage)

while Elliott, Oliver and Andrew went off to find some food.

Finally we were got on the plane and were on our way. The first flight was nice and pretty short. I tried to sleep a little but I never have much luck sleeping on a plane. Besides, I was too excited.

We had a quick layover in ATL (Atlanta) and had just enough time to grab some lunch before getting on our next flight. (Little did we know that we would get to know this airport very well in all too short a time)

Our next flight seemed much longer cause we were all so antsy to be off the plane and at DISNEY!! You can tell that we’re a little more awake and hyper on this flight.

FINALLY we landed at MCO, made our way to the Magical Express check in, bypassed the counter (cause we had our vouchers) and headed to get in a big line for a bus to ASMu. This was the first of MANY lines that day. Apparently, Touring Plans had slightly underestimated how many people were going to still be there the Monday after New Years Day. The crowd calendar had it at a 6. My calendar would put it at an 8. Probably not too bad if you're planning for it....but I wasn't.

Up Next: How many buses do we have to wait for before getting to All Star Music? Just how crowded IS MK on a 6 day?

 

[AprilRenee]

Part 1: Kids Trip to Disney
Day 1: Goodbye STL!
Day 1: Magic Kingdom!
Day 1: MK part 2
Day 1: Osborne Family Lights (HS EMH)
Day 2-Hollywood Studios
Day 2: HS part 2
Day 2: HS part 3
Day 2: HS part 3
Day 2: DTD
Day 3: Epcot
Day 3: Epcot part 2
Day 4: AK
Day 4: AK part 2
Day 4: Fantasmic
Day 5: Magic Kingdom
Day 5: MK cont.
Day 5: EP, DTD, and EP EMH
Day 6: HS
Day 6: EP World Showcase
Day 6: Late Night at MK
Day 7: Andrew's Birthday
Day 7: EP & MK

PART 2: I Lost My Soul at ATL
Hours 8-24
Hours 24-36
Day 2: Hours 1-15


Part 3: Photobook
Photobook pages 1-10
Photobook pages 11-20

 

[AprilRenee]

So the whole time we’re waiting the 20-30 min for a bus I’m telling the boys how these are like the longest line we’ll probably wait in the whole trip. (I swear I’m not a cocky as I sound…our last trip we never waited more than 10 min for anything!) Really none of them cared…I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who felt like it was a long line. They were just excited to be in Orlando. Well, and Avery was excited to be in line with a million asian girls. He actually decided one of them was the cutest one in the crowd and was super excited to see her walking around our resort later. Crazy 13 yr old boy hormones!

Anyway, we got on our bus to ASMu, found some seats all the way in the back cause they were the only 5 together. Andrew didn’t like the idea of riding for 30 min at the back of the bus (he has pretty bad motion sickness) so Andrew and Elliott moved up a few rows where there were 2 seats available and I sat with Avery and Oliver in the back.

We didn’t mind and we had a great view of the movie screen.

Once we got to ASMu we headed in to check in and got the boys 1st trip buttons and Andrew’s birthday button. The lady also gave us a little bunch of balloons for Andrew’s birthday. That was a really nice touch and made him feel pretty special.

On our way to our rooms we stopped to check out the gift shop and teach the boys how to pin trade.

Then we headed to check out our rooms in the Calypso buildings. We were in the first building on the left as you head out of Melody Hall and on the backside, facing away from the pool. It was a pretty good location. We were nice and close to the food court but it was nice and quiet outside our room.

We all were pretty impressed with the family suites. They were nice and spacious and we loved having the 2 bathrooms and the kitchenette.
We quickly unpacked and got ready to head to MK. It was so beautiful outside (especially for us coming from STL and weather in the teens and 20s) that Andrew and Elliott decided to change into shorts. All of us decided we didn’t need jackets (Oh BOY did we regret THAT decision!!).

While we were waiting for the bus we took the first of many “everyone squish in and take a picture before heading to the parks” picture.

Then I took some pics with the big letters
A for Avery

and R cause the boy’s last name (and my maiden name) starts with R

Then we were on the bus and entering the Magic Kingdom!!!

When we entered it was almost parade time and Main Street was way empty. I was excited that even though the airport and magical express line was busy and long, the park was still much close to the 6 crowd level that I was expecting. Yeah, we should’ve just stayed on Main Street!!!

We headed into the hub and turned left to go to ride Pirates! As we turned the corner it suddenly got MUCH busier! Pirates had a 30 minute wait and I had no intention of waiting in that line. Elliott had other ideas, he wanted to ride Pirates and he wanted to ride it NOW. I was pretty annoyed but followed the group into the line. Once in line I told him, “dude, listen… when I say let’s wait and ride a ride later in the day, can you just believe me? This will have a much shorter line later and I don’t wanna wait 30 minutes for rides that normally have 5-10 waits.” He said ok but that he wanted to ride Pirates and he didn’t care if he had to wait in a line. So I chilled out and enjoyed hanging out with my brothers.
However, this was just a sign of what was to come. Elliott wasn’t too keen on following a touring plan and argued with it a lot. Eventually I just started saying, “ok you can do that, we’re going to follow the plan.” It also helped once I decided to email him the plan so that he knew what we were going to ride when. Once it wasn’t just his sister telling him what to do, he went along with it a little more.

After Pirates we decided to get some lunch at Pecos Bill’s. We found a spot along the parade route to sit and eat and I was hoping to get to see some of the parade. However, we were done eating before the parade started and everyone was itching to ride more rides. So we headed to Fantasyland to ride Small World and watch Mickey’s Philharmagic. When we passed the sword the boys wanted to try it out!

Poor Andrew…we missed the shot…

No luck for any of us!

Mickey’s Philharmagic had another 30 minute wait. By this point I had seen the other wait times and had fought thru the crowds to get into Fantasyland (while holding hands so that we could stay together) and I realized that 30 min was a pretty low wait time comparatively. So we got in line.
While in line, I got on my Touring Plans app and tried to decide if we should hop to another (read: calmer and less crowded) park. We decided to stick it out and just ride some less popular rides until the crowds died down.
At this point Avery started complaining of a stomach ache. Avery and I both have nervous stomachs and our stomach aches feel like they’re almost heartburn but lower in the abdomen and they make you feel like you’re going to throw up from the pain. I usually have some meds in my purse but I don’t take a purse to the parks. I knew this stomachache wasn’t just going to go away so I offered to head to the hotel for a while if he wanted. He didn’t want to ruin everyone’s day and said he wanted to stick it out. I told him once we were out of MP that we would find some antacid for him and see if it helped.

Everyone loved Mickey’s Phil (of course!) and it was starting to feel like a magical day at Disney World again. Once out of the movie we headed to find some meds for Avery. After a little wild goose chase we finally found the Pooh gift shop that sold medicine and got Avery some Tums.

We then decided to ride Small World while we were in Fantasyland. There was a line but it moved pretty fast and we really wanted to ride it.

After SW, Andrew and I decided to take the boys to Carousel of Progress cause we figured it would have a short line. Finally, we were right about something! The room was pretty full but we didn’t have to wait in any line to ride. We were able to walk right in.

Cont. next post

 

[AprilRenee]

Continued....

The boys really enjoyed CoP (so did we) and we decided to hit the Peoplemover cause it had no wait.

By this point the Tums had started working and Avery was feeling a little better. The crowds were starting to thin out a bit too and I was feeling a little bit better too! The weather however, was getting colder. I considered buying a hoodie cause I knew it was only going to get worse but Andrew talked me out of it.

We decided to ride Haunted Mansion then camped out behind the Christmas Shop to watch the MSEP, that I apparently didn’t take any pictures of. I think we were just too cold to pull out any cameras! It was SO cold standing still! But the parade was really cool. I liked it better than Spectromagic. Not sure why. I kinda felt like it had more of my favorite characters.

Once the parade was over we headed to Cosmic Rays for dinner. Avery and I found a spot on the patio with a view of the castle cause I THOUGHT I had read that it was a good place to watch Wishes.

Apparently, I read wrong…once I got home I looked it up again and it’s the Tomorrowland Terrace that has a good view, not Cosmic Rays. Ah well…slight fail there. I mean, we could see the castle, but once the fireworks started they were blocked by the roof of the patio. So once we realized our mistake and ran out to the bridge and just found a spot to stand and watch.

After Wishes, we decided to ride Buzz. It had a decent line but again, the boys really wanted to ride it so we got in line. A few seconds later we saw someone walk into the line, look at his fastpasses and set them down and walk away. I stood there for a second kinda waiting to see if he would come back but he never did. I was pretty sure that they were just fastpasses that were past the return time and I decided to jump out of line and grab them. Sure enough they were still good, just past time. I went back to the boys in line and told them what I found. The guy was gone and we didn’t see him anymore so we decided finders keepers and left the line!
There were only 4 fastpasses so I told the boys to ride and I went to find somewhere warm to wait. I don’t really like that ride that much, it’s too hard to aim and I just get frustrated. So I didn’t mind skipping it. While I waited in the Buzz gift shop my mom called so I chatted with her a little bit.

Then we got a picture at our favorite photo op spot. Andrew and I had had a magical moment of sorts last trip when were were here so it had good memories.

After Buzz, Elliott and I ended up blowing up at each other over something, I hit him (which hadn’t happened in years), he got mad and stormed away, we followed him and I started crying. The boys realized it, Elliott stopped and I apologized profusely and we made up. I felt so horrible having a fight on our first night at Disney but we were both so cold and tired and stressed out and tensions had been high ever since the Pirates thing.

I feel like I need to explain a little about myself and Elliott. For the last 8 years or so Elliott and I had a pretty bad relationship. We pretty much couldn’t have a conversation for more than 5 minutes before it turning into a yelling match. He is the only one I’m like that with. But in the last few years (once we both had moved out of the house and had some college under our belts) we’ve started getting along again. I think our parent’s divorce helped us a little too as we realized that we needed each other. We really enjoy each other’s company now. However, this trip was kind of a litmus test to see if our relationship was really as healed as we thought it was. Honestly, once we had some sleep things went much better and that was the only major blow-up that happened. Even that one only lasted a minute or two.

Anyway, once we made up Andrew took Elliott and Oliver to go somewhere else and Avery and I decided to ride the Teacups.

Once I got over the whole Elliott thing I had a lot of fun on the Teacups with Avery. Andrew and the boys ended up riding Small World again just to go into somewhere warm.

By the time we met back up we were all feeling in better spirits and laughing hard cause Elliott, Oliver and Andrew were feeling rather traumatized by their second ride on Small World. I think that song was just a little too much for them to handle two times so close together!

Finally we decided to use the fastpasses that we had gathered earlier in the day and rode Peter Pan’s Flight. Then decided it was time to head out…to EMH at Hollywood Studios!! This was the last night that the Osborne Family lights were going to be up and I REALLY wanted to see them.
So even though we were freezing our tails off, the boys humored me and we headed for the monorail. My plan was to ride the monorail to CR then take a bus to HS.
On our way we took some night time castle pics.

I also wanted some pics of the decorations in case they were gone by the time we made it back to MK

Up next: Do we make it to HS? Do we freeze to death?

 

[WDWangela]

Great report. I am enjoying reading about your trip. Keep it coming!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Great start to a report! It's so cool that you guys all went together and totally cool that you did that with your brothers.

 

[AprilRenee]

Just wanted to quickly finish out the day….
So we hopped on the monorail and took it to the Contemporary Resort. Cool place! It was fun to get off the monorail right into a building! However, then we realized that we had no idea where to catch a bus. So we headed to find the front desk, as we were asking the front desk where to go to get to HS some guy overheard us and told us that the HS bus had just dropped him off and if we ran we could catch it…

So run we did! We just caught the bus (I actually think the bus driver saw us and waited for us) and then began the LONG trip to HS. I think we stopped at like 3 other resorts before going to HS. Now that we’ve done it once, if I ever took that path again I would take the monorail to a resort further along the bus path…however, it was awfully late at this point (maybe 10pm?) and I don’t remember what the last resort we stopped at even was…ah well…

So eventually we arrived at HS and headed in. The decorations were georgous. We headed straight for the Osborne Family Lights. That was pretty awesome! It wasn’t very busy (after 10 pm!) so we headed to the middle cause I wanted to watch the lights and be surrounded. They were cool but actually kinda hard to watch from the middle! There was too much going on to catch it all!

If we had been wearing jackets we would have stayed to watch another song but it was just TOO cold to stand there waiting. So we decided to see if RnRC or TSM had a short line. Both had decent lines so we headed to the front to go home and go to bed! We were SOO tired!!

Up at the front either someone had to go to the bathroom or the boys had stopped in a shop to pin trade, either way, I ended up waiting in the little camera center/gift shop that looks like a little gas station right by the front gates (cause it was warmish inside!). A mom and her little boy came in and the little boy was crying. I overheard her tell the dad that they were almost to the front of the TSM ride and it shut down and they sent everyone out. The poor little guy had been waiting in line for almost an hour and was SO disappointed!! I decided to see if the mom was ok with me giving him a trading pin (I had a Buzz Lightyear one that seemed like the perfect thing to cheer him up). She said it was fine so I asked him if he’d like a Buzz pin. He immediately nodded yes and took the pin. It seemed to help and he stopped crying. ☺ Made me feel good to help stop some tears.

Once the boys rejoined me we headed out.

Back at ASMu Avery and I split a personal pizza (he had skipped dinner cause he still felt a little sick and was hungry now). We all got our mugs, filled up and headed to our room. We were so wiped out we all changed and headed straight to bed. I set my alarm for early cause the next day was our HS day and we had to get there in time for the TSM stampede!

Up next: Do we make it in time for rope drop and the TSM stampede? My motion-sick DH gets guilted into RnRC….does he survive?

 

[AprilRenee]

Great report. I am enjoying reading about your trip. Keep it coming!

Great start to a report! It's so cool that you guys all went together and totally cool that you did that with your brothers.

Thanks for joining in!!! Glad to know someone is reading!
It was kinda weird writing to the ether and not knowing if anyone was even reading...it feels a little less weird now

 

[IheartDDuck]

That was so sweet of you to give that little boy a pin. I totally would have wanted to do something like that too.

 

[Disney_Jill]

What a great trip report! How nice of you and your brothers to take a trip together.

 

[AprilRenee]

That was so sweet of you to give that little boy a pin. I totally would have wanted to do something like that too.

My DH and I are dying to have some kids of our own to take to Disney....but until that time is right (gotta think about the rest of life, not just Disney...sad isn't it?) anyway, until it's the right time for kids, we really enjoy doing things to make something special for kids we come across at Disney. Just little things that either produce a smile or help a parent out. Like we love to take glowsticks along to the evening entertainment and give them to kids we're sitting near (with parents permission of course). DH also has a rule for himself that if a kid asks to pin trade with him he'll trade anything the kid wants, even if it's a pin he likes.

What a great trip report! How nice of you and your brothers to take a trip together.

Thanks for joining! We had a blast going together and have found that we're even closer with each other now that we're back.

 

[AprilRenee]

The alarm went off WAY early…it probably was like 7 or 7:30 but that’s early for me anyway and after our SUPER early morning and late night yesterday…it was REALLY early!
I got up and got ready then woke up Andrew and the boys. Andrew understood the importance of getting moving but Elliott and Oliver were havig a little trouble getting up. So Andrew took my iphone and plugged it into the aux imput on the alarm clock and blasted Small World thru the suite. They both screamed a little and got up pretty quick after that! LOL
The radio blasting a Disney song kinda became our way of waking the boys up every morning. I’d always try and wake them up gently but then when they didn’t wake up…out came a catchy and loud Disney song. Small World was a favorite for the torture but “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan came out a couple times too ☺

Once everyone was up Elliott ran out to smoke a cigarette then we all met at the bus stop.

Elliott looks SO tired!!

We made it in plenty of time for the TSM stampede. I hate these things! They’re so stressful to me and Andrew gets really competitive about it so he’s racing past people dragging me along when really all I want to do is just move with the crowd and get there when I get there (I mean, I move quickly, I just don’t try and rush past everyone else!). Well, add Elliott and his competitiveness in to that equation and we ended up playing a “fun” game of Crack the Whip with Andrew, Elliott and Oliver dragging April and Avery to TSM. We finally made it and we were near the front of the line. I snapped a few pics as we ran thru the line and we were pretty excited to get to ride first thing in the AM.

Gotta get a pic of Mr. Potato Head!

I rode with Andrew for this ride, Elliott and Avery rode together and Oliver was brave and went alone. We figured it didn’t matter too much for this ride cause it goes so quickly…it’s not like you have time to chat as you go!
Here’re our scores. I’m the one on the left I think…

After TSM we grabbed some FPs and headed over to Rockin’ Roller Coaster!

While waiting in line, we convinced Andrew to ride with us.

This was possibly the biggest mistake of the WHOLE trip! Like I said before, Andrew has motion sickness. Now I don’t really like roaller costers but it’s because I hate the drop feeling in my stomach. But RnRC just goes fast! I don’t feel the drops at all. Also, I totally didn’t remember/realize that it went upside down. Cause I just felt speed. Well, Andrew apparently can’t handle any of it…he needs to have a point of focus and when going upside down or a corkscrew he can’t find something to focus on and so he gets sick. He almost got sick on the ride and he was MAD afterwards. As soon as we got off the ride he practically sprinted to the bathroom and was in there a LONG time. I felt TERRIBLE!!! I grabbed him a bottle of water with a snack credit and had Oliver run it into the bathroom for him. When he finally came out he said that he hadn’t gotten sick but he felt terrible. And he was still pretty mad at me for convincing him to go on it. I really had NO idea that his motion sickness was so bad. I KNOW now!!

Next up on our touring plan was Voyage of the Little Mermaid. I figured this would be ok for him cause we wouldn’t be moving at all. He could just sit and watch a show and let his stomach settle.

Well, we headed into the little waiting area and Andrew stood there for a second and the turned around and just walked out. I thought maybe he wanted to just wait outside so I texted him when the doors opened letting him know that it was time to go in. He never appeared so we just headed in and watched the show without him. I was still feeling really bad and hoping that I hadn’t just ruined his whole day. The show was good as always but I had a hard time enjoying it because I was worrying about Andrew. My trip track record wasn’t too good so far. Hit Elliott, Avery got sick our first day, Andrew was sick now. Man…I just need to ruin Oliver’s trip and then we can go home! So anyway…I took some photos while having my little pity party.

I only took a couple cause I knew I’d only need 2-3 for my photo book and last time I ended up with a million.

I wish I had taken some pics of the black light Under the Sea song cause Oliver and I worked with a girl for a Christmas gig who used to be a puppeteer for that show/song. Whenever she is in Orlando, she picks up extra shifts doing the show since she’s trained for it. We thought that was pretty cool!!

Once we got out of the show we looked around for Andrew and he was nowhere around… I finally got a hold of him on the phone and he had gone to the first aid station and was laying down. We decided to stall a little, meet some characters, do some pin trading, etc. We didn’t really want to do any of the attractions without him. He said we could but we knew he wanted to go on everything so we just waited.

So we headed to meet Stitch. He was on several of the boys Must Do lists anyway!

LOVE that photo!!

The CM that was running his line was really nice and chatty. We talked with her for a while while we waited.

I’ve decided that if I was ever to work at Disney, that would be the job I’d want. Either that or a photopass photographer. That’s our retirement plan…Andrew is in technical theater (construction and special effects) and has the brains to be an Imagineer. We figure after working as a theater technician for many years, he may have a good chance at applying and getting an Imagineer position.

I’m graduated college with a BFA in acting and really enjoy it (I currently teach musical theater, tech theater and work as a JCPenney photographer part time) but by the time our future kids are grown, out of the house and we retire, I’ll be too old for most characters. So instead I’ll just be a fun little old lady chatting up the kids and parents waiting in line for a character and I’ll get to see so many magical memories being made!

Yep…so that’s our plan…now back to your regularly scheduled trip report…

Up next we met Chip and Dale:
The photo pass photographer was kinda grumpy and made us take off our sunglasses for the second picture. Now… I actually like the sunglasses picture better than the “squinty eyes/why did that photographer just yell at us” picture…but I’ll put both in for your enjoyment!

(side note...I just accidentally uploaded this one full size and I think I like it better...the next updates will probably have bigger photos now...yay! I thought they would be too big but that size seems fine.)

After those characters, Elliott and Avery did some pin trading under the hat while Oliver and I took some pictures outside of The Great Movie Ride.

Steve Martin

Goofy

Tom Cruise

Up Next: Does Andrew ever join us? Do we get to finish our day at HS?

 

[IheartDDuck]

Oh no, poor Andrew! That stinks.

TSM is one of my favorites. I get so competitive though, I completely admit it!

 

[jc040404]

Awesome! You've started your TR! Well, you're already on Day Two? How'd I miss it?

Looks like you're all having fun, despite some of the bumps. Super glad things are starting work out with your brother. I've gone something like that with my oldest little sister. ("Oldest little" makes sense, right? I've got three of 'em, too.) Unfortunately, it hasn't turned out so well yet(forever hopeful), but dealing with divorces makes everything crazy.

LOVE that you grabbed those FPs for Buzz! That was too perfect.

Hope Andrew starts feeling better and can join in for some fun. I never knew that coaster goes upside down though. Yay for being able to prepare. Glad I've got a long wait before somone hits that height milestone!

LOVE the Stitch picture!

I'm with you on the Chip & Dale pic. Sunglasses was definitely better! I wonder why the PP person wanted 'em off? Too weird.

Now that I'm caught up, I can't wait to read more! Great TR!

 

[AprilRenee]

I'm so glad you've joined! I was hoping you would!
And yes, "oldest little" made sense You have 3 younger sisters? or sisters and brothers?

 

[AprilRenee]

Sorry for the long delay. Life got busy and the DIS got put on the back burner for a while. But I’m back and I’m really going to try hard not to get so behind again. We’ll see how well I do.

So to pick up where we left off, Andrew is sick from riding RnRC and laying down at the First Aid Station and the boys and I are wandering around, pin trading, meeting characters and trying to stall til Andrew feels better and can join us.

Well, we had stalled for a while and finally decided to just get in line for The Great Movie Ride. I figured it was a pretty good ride and if Andrew wanted to ride it with us later we’d be ok going on it again. So we headed in. The line was decent by this time of the day (maybe 20 min or so) and we got to watch the trailers showing in the “movie theater” waiting area. We were there long enough to see them all once and have it start over.
Right as we got to the front of the line (like we were the next ones to go in) Andrew called and said he was feeling better and wanted to join up with us. DOH!!! I told him where we were and he was right outside the building. So I asked the CM if we could just wait off to the side until he reached the front of the line. She said that was fine so the boys sat off to the side of the door and I went to the back of the line to stand with Andrew. Thankfully the line had died down a little so his wait wasn’t very long and in no time we were at the front and getting in our ride vehicle.

We got the Western story line this time!

It was exciting cause last trip we got the Gangster one. The western one was really cool with the explosion and fire!

Elliott had just watched Casablanca for the first time not too long before our trip and wanted us to take a million pictures of that scene.

I always love the Wizard of Oz scene!

Once we got out of The Great Movie Ride, we headed over to TSM to grab another set of fastpasses.

^ these army men are so cool!!

Then we headed over to the Backlot Tour. We really enjoyed this one cause we like seeing the “behind the scenes” stuff. Last time we went the water tank area was “working on new special effects” and so they didn’t have any audience volunteers. This time they did and we weren’t expecting it at all so it was really cool to see them “film” a couple of movie scenes!!

These guys were really into it. They were pretty funny too!

Poor girl! Wouldn’t have liked THAT volunteer job! Don’t you think all that water hitting you must hurt!?

We always love to see the shop on the tour. Andrew and I both build theater sets so we can easily imagine working in that shop and how cool it would be!

After the backlot tour we were on our way thru the Streets of America to get some lunch when we saw Mike and Sully out doing a meet and greet! The line was super short (like 1-2 kids) so we jumped in line! They were so much fun!! Sully took a minute to gather us all together and pose us then turned around and stood in front of us all for the picture!

Then he behaved himself and came over to join us…but covered Avery’s face. Bahahaha!!! This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip!! LOVE it!!

Then I guess he figured we should get at least one “good” one.

I LOVE the funny photos so much, you can really get a sense of the fun atmosphere of that Meet and Greet!!
I do have to say, these guys have some weird bodies. Mike was so hard! It was really weird to hug him and Avery was sad cause Sully wasn’t as soft and fluffy inside as he thought he would be. Ah well, they look really cool and they were a lot of fun!

Cont. next post....

 

[AprilRenee]

After our fun meet and greet we headed to PIZZA PLANET!!!! Love this place. I love pizza and Toy Story and I can have both in one food place!! Yay!!!

The only thing that would make it better (as we discussed on jc040404’s TR) is if it had a Little Green Alien claw machine to play!

After lunch we sent this picture to our parents and told them it was super cold down here in Florida! Hahaha! They didn’t take the bait.

Though, it might as well have been that cold the night before. We certainly felt that cold!!

Next up was muppet vision 3D.

This was closed for refurb on our last trip so Andrew and I had never seen it. I have to say…I don’t think we really missed much.

I did take time to show Andrew the key under the mat (thanks DISboard!!) and I LOVED all the silly things in the waiting area!!

Next up was Lights Motors Action!! I have to say this show is MUCH more enjoyable in January weather than it was in May weather! All I could really remember from the last time was being REALLY REALLY hot sitting there watching that show. It was pretty miserable. This time…oh it was so beautiful! The weather was just fantastic the whole trip (as long as you had a jacket!) and we would walk thru each park and just breathe in deep and go “Oh!!!!! It’s SOOO nice out here!!!” I told Andrew the other day that I never want to go to Disney in the heat again. The 60-70 degree weather is just SO pleasant!!
Anyway, LMA was fun and cool and all that….here, see some pictures!

After the show we wandered to Tatooine Traders. We’re all HUGE star wars fans and wanted to look around even though Star Tours was closed.

What THEY didn’t know though was that Darth Vader was doing meet and greets around the corner between Jedi Training shows. I had read this on the Dis and decided to keep it to myself and surprise Andrew and the boys. Andrew had really wanted to meet Darth last trip (he was out doing some random meet and greets in preparation for Star Wars weekends) but we never were able to catch him. This time I was determined to get a meeting in!!

While the boys looked around the shop, I ran around the corner to see if Darth was out. Sure enough he was there so I checked with the CMs that he’d be out for a while and then ran back to grab the boys. They were excited and came with me right away!

We had fun taking pictures in line…

Andrew was the only one brave enough to jump over the ropes and go pose for this shot….maybe we shouldn’t have done it but we weren’t told not to and it was too good!

Who’s excited to meet Darth Vader!?!?!

WE ARE!!!!!!

First we had our pre-meet with the Stormtrooper. He was pretty awesome and let us take lots of different pictures with him!

Even this one! :-D hahaha!

Another favorite pic!

Finally we got up to the HEAD HONCHO!!

Please take a moment to enjoy this whole photo… As we walked up Elliott asked Darth to act like he was choking him. So we have Elliott being choked by Darth Vader and Oliver is sneaking in from the back trying to steal Darth’s lightsaber. The rest of us are just standing there getting a photo taken. We didn’t realize we were supposed to be doing something goofy!

Next, of course, we had to stop to take some necessary land speeder photos!

More favorite photos!!


Next up…it’s time to try a new ride….why did I think ToT was a good idea!?!?!?!

 

[jc040404]

And yes, "oldest little" made sense You have 3 younger sisters? or sisters and brothers?

Glad that made sense. All sisters. My parents wanted a boy. You see how that turned out.


I am soooo jealous! I've never seen the Western side! I really thinkg the gangster thing is ridiculous. We always get someone who really shouldn't be acting and the whole thing is nuts. Love the rest of it though. You're too lucky!

What's this key at the muppet show? I've heard it exists, but never looked it up.

Your pictures are hilarious!! I love the last one with Darth Vader! You all look like you're having so much fun!

 

[AprilRenee]

What's this key at the muppet show? I've heard it exists, but never looked it up.

Your pictures are hilarious!! I love the last one with Darth Vader! You all look like you're having so much fun!

The key is right when you enter the que. Off to the right there is a door and a sign is on the door saying something like "out to lunch, key under mat" then if you go over there and lift the mat there's a key there. I should've taken a picture of it...but ah well!

Thanks! We had lots of fun with the pictures. Pay attention as the trip goes on. We got tired of standing there looking doofy in our character pictures so we started coming up with poses for each character as we stood in line. Like we drank tea with Alice and read a book with Belle. It made things a lot more fun and we didn't feel silly as grown up kids taking pictures with the characters.

 

[AprilRenee]

After lots of Star Wars pictures, Elliott and I decided it was time to try Tower of Terror.

I had decided long before the trip that I was going to try ToT and Space Mountain on this trip cause I figured I’d never get another chance to do it WITH someone and I sure wasn’t gonna do them alone!

Now you have to understand that the thing I hate most about roller coasters is the dropping feeling. So I was pretty sure that a ride with a million drops and nothing else was NOT going to be my favorite ride ever. I was pretty sure I was gonna hate it.

But Elliott was not gonna let me chicken out of this one and said I had to do it. No one else wanted to go so Elliott and I got in line. The wait time was short (10-15 mins?). I’m not sure what Andrew and the little boys did while we rode. Probably pin traded. Dang pin trading. We couldn’t walk more than 5 feet before stopping to pin trade or at least check out a lanyard. They were kinda obsessed!

Anyway, so we’re in line for ToT and I’m totally freaking out.

Like, I’m pretty convinced I’m going to throw up or pee my pants right there in line. But I push thru cause I WANT to do this ride. I figure it won’t kill me. It wouldn’t be still running if it killed people. And I heard that the que and lead up to the drops was really cool and themed and I really wanted to see it.
So here are the 2 pictures I took while walking thru the line. I’m surprised they turned out at all cause I’m pretty sure I was shaking.

Not gonna lie, the que was NOT cool enough to make up for the torture of that ride!

I almost bailed again before getting in the elevator but Elliott told me I had to do it. Finally we got on the elevator and the doors closed and I knew I was stuck. I felt super sick to my stomach but took a deep breath and told myself it would be over soon. Don’t really remember much of the ride to the drops. I was just waiting for the drops to happen. I knew from reading the disboards what the dropping area looked like so at least I wasn’t surprised when we dropped.
However, I wasn’t expecting it to all feel like drops. I couldn’t tell the difference between going up and going down. All I knew was that I was flying out of my seat, hanging on for dear life and screaming like I was going to die. I’ve never screamed involuntarily before. In fact, I was planning on not screaming and just holding my breath the whole time. But as soon as that first drop happened that scream ripped out of my mouth and didn’t stop for the whole drop sequence.

We finally got off the ride, stumbled out into the gift shop, found our photo. I didn’t take a pic of it. I’m pretty sure I was too shaken up. I was definitely trembling as we walked out. Like it was hard to walk I was shaking so bad. I don’t really remember the gift shop or how we found the other boys, probably called a cell phone. I do remember making it out to meet them outside the start of the line and telling Andrew “I am NEVER going on that again!”

Once I stopped shaking we decided to use our TSM fastpasses and ride a nice, fun, drop-less ride.

We took the obligatory yellow glasses photo and were the next people in line to hand over our fastpasses when the ride stopped and they closed down the line and sent us all out. Thankfully, we still had those fast passes in our hands. So we pocketed them for later and headed back into the park.

(I was just looking thru my notes from this day and these were the fastpasses we got right after riding TSM first thing in the am. When we went back later in the day (and took that pic with the Army Man) we had gotten in line and the kiosks ran out of fastpasses while we were 2 people away. So we ended up only having 1 set of TSM fastpasses for the day.)

We decided to go check out the Narnia attraction next. We didn’t remember doing it last time and we all really love the narnia movies so it seemed like a no brainer. Well apparently the reason we didn’t remember doing it last time was cause it is less than memorable!! Oh my gosh! We walked in, stood in the room with the stone table from the movie (it was about here that we remembered having done this before) and then watched clips of the movie. Then we walked out, looked at a couple of movie props and costumes and we were done. Lamest attraction ever!! Sorry, I know there are people who like this one but we aren’t some of them.

After “Lameia” we wanted to show the boys One Man One Dream cause Andrew and I LOVE that attraction. We really love the history of Disney and it’s a great tribute to the man behind everything we love!

Sadly, we were trying to make it to Character Palooza and didn’t have time to stay and watch the film. We told ourselves we were going to come back and watch it another day but that never ended up happening.

Once over in the animation building we explored a little bit, met Sorcerer Mickey,

Then we waited and waited and waited for character palooza to begin. I decided maybe we were looking in the wrong place so we wandered around a little and found the Tangled room!!
We took lots of Tangled Pics!! Avery, Andrew and I had seen the movie a week or two before the trip and LOVED it!!

Then we waited and waited and waited some more for these millions characters to appear.

Finally, we were tired and hungry and disappointed in the lack of character palooza (they never did come out!) so we decided to use our TSM fastpasses and head off to find dinner.

See that # on the right??? That was MINE!! Best TSM score I’ve ever gotten! I was the top score in our set when we got to the score board thing too!! I was pretty excited!!

Up next: Off to DTD for dinner, pin trading and someone who was NOT feeling the magic!